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Its not a healthy sign for a white opening system if black has the pleasant choice of equality or playing for more, usually such luxuries are reserved for the first player. 

I agree with Markovich here in that the Modern is an excellent practical choice against the KG, which fits perfectly with classical chess principles such as meeting a flank attack with a counter in the centre etc etc., more importantly I think Karpov and Yusupov rely on this defence which in itself should count as a testament to its soundnesss and durability. 

Gambiteers tend to consider any position with equal pawns to be dull or boring, so why not make their worse nightmare a reality by returning the extra pawn and freeing your game with an early d5 a la Modern.  

Toppy   

    

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Yeah, well, I've had an FM play it on me, and I won.

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Baloney.  It's only a question of what sort of game you'd like to play.

Here I agree with Markovich. I would call a game like Eley-Bouwmeester anything but dull. Annoying, stomach turning are the words, that pop up.

Eley,B - Bouwmeester,H [C36/09]
Vlissingen-tm, 1972
1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 d5 4.exd5 Nf6 5.Bb5+ c6 6.dxc6 Nxc6 7.d4 Bd6 8.Qe2+ Be6 9.Ng5 0–0 10.Nxe6 fxe6 11.Bxc6 bxc6 12.0–0 Qc7 13.Qxe6+ Kh8 14.Nd2 Rae8 15.Qc4 g5 16.Nf3 Ne4 17.Re1 g4 18.Ne5 Bxe5 19.Rxe4 Bd6 20.Rxe8 Rxe8 21.Qf1 f3 22.gxf3 gxf3 23.Qxf3 Qg7+ 24.Qg2 Re1+ 0–1

Markovich wrote on 04/03/07 at 20:09:36:


what about your own fun?

anyway I didn't mean 3...g5 in particular
basically anything other than 3...d5 (or 2...d5 and ...exf4) can be played for a win
the Modern is just rather dull

woofwoof wrote on 04/03/07 at 17:23:34:


There is a notable mistake in Gallagher's analysis of the Modern, which I will post here when I can get to my sources.

Jonathan Tait: Yes well, I very often do win.  The Modern is not such a lame tool.  I agree that the critical variations arise from 3...g5, but that is a move that goes very deeply against my grain.  Also there is something to be said for denying these gambit psychotics their fun.

Dragonslayer:  I agree, but nevertheless, I think that books backed up by silicon are more reliable than those that aren't.   

I did think, though, that Nunn's improvements on a few of the variations that Keres gave in his game collection unfortunately marred the latest, latterly 2-volume, edition of this work.  One doesn't need John Nunn's help to fire Fritz up, after all. 

You can mostly tell silicon-inspired variations by their enormous length and shortage of branches, I opine.

Tried to reply to MNb's post don't know what happened but the last line of his post now looks strange and my reply is gone 

Anyway, I'd like to point out that page 109 vol. 2, I think, of E/G quotes the game Bronstein-Vaisman, Sandomir 1976 which refutes one of Neil McDonald's (1998) computer assisted analysis.

As for the 8...Bc5 line in the Pierce, it wasn't nearly as notorious as Tseitlin and Glazkov managing to leave it out of their 1995 book on the Vienna. Fortunately the eagle-eyed editor (John Nunn) spotted it and included Tseitlin's loss against Marciano in Bukharest 1993. Tseitlin has not played this gambit since. Motwani also gave it up after losing in a simul in 1994 (see STAR Chess for the details)

IMO the most infamous example is Korchnoi giving a line (1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf 3.Nf3 g5 4.h4 g4 5Ne5 d6 6.Nxg4 Nf6 7.Nf2 Rg8 8.d4 Bh6 9.Nc3 Qe7 10.Nd3 Bg4 11.Be2 Bxe2 12.Qxe2 Nc6 13.Bxf4? Nxd4 14.Qf2, Sofrigin-Telegin, USSR 196 something) in the Kieseritzky as += in ECO C (1974). When Planinc played this in Moscow 1975 Korchnoi followed his own line and then played 14...Nxe4 when White is lost - Korchnoi won in 19. Guess Planinc wanted his money back...

My point is: You can find howlers in any book, even those where Fritz assisted the 'writer' and a lot of the analysis in the two volumes from 1982 (translated by Ken Neat) is quite good and honest.  There is also a revised 1988 Russian edition. Too many authors think old books don't matter and just collect some new games and let Fritz do its thing before they dump the whole thing to paper.

Markovich wrote on 04/03/07 at 14:02:18:


that's a bit lame for a theoretician

equalizing is easy against the King's Gambit
you should be trying to win